Tag: Colin Kaepernick

Happy Friday! Thanks to Justin Twell (@JustinTwell78) for the segment we did for Wednesday’s show with Week 3 picks, Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers and more. Be sure to check out Inside The Pylon and read his great work there. You can find my own work there too including my latest DFS Diary.

In today’s show we asked whether we will let Cam Newton live already? Newton is a grown man who should be allowed to determine what’s best for him and his family. Not everyone wants to protest or be an advocate and that is okay.

Guys, Cam Newton doesnt need to think like you or express himself like you to be black. We dont all share one brain. Lets seek &pursue peace

We all come to enlightenment in our own way and in our own space. Colin Kaepernick, who jump started this valuable conversation in our country, came to his own personal advocacy in his own time. Not everyone changes the world in a big way. Sometimes, its the small steps that make all the difference.

We can all be better friends, better neighbors, and better co-workers. In our own interpersonal communications we can change a life and maybe, just maybe, change our own little worlds. They say all politics is local and change most frequently occurs in small minute levels.

Today we talked Katie Nolan, Bart Hubbuch and twitter trolls. AGAIN. I missed all the brouhaha yesterday with Bart Hubbuch currently or possibly formerly of New York Post, and only found out this morning he had deleted his twitter and possibly lost his job. If true, that is unfortunate that it came at the hands of a twitter mob.

Look, I have long had a love/hate relationship with Hubbuch and he has said some things I definitely disagree with on the regular. However, the tweet in question was one of his more innocuous ones and certainly not worthy of a twitter mob or a job dismissal.

I guess Nolan is a Boston sports fan. Color me shocked. Boston sports fans can be some of the worst so the heckling and twitter mob comes as no surprise. The biggest irony here is that Nolan herself is a troll as is the majority of her network. Fox Sports’ main shtick is troll sports. Disagreement is good so long as it’s done in a healthy fashion but targeted abuse should never be tolerated.

Colin Kaepernick set off what has turned out to be a polarizing discussion on protest in America when he refused to stand for the national anthem prior to a (gasp!) exhibition football game. Protest has long been utilized in this country as a mechanism for change yet we still seem uncomfortable with it. We often don’t want to see things that conflict with what we were taught or grew up believing.

Protest by definition is supposed to be discomforting otherwise it would not be effective. This country was founded on protest and our national documents recognize this as an inalienable right.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King Jr.

Colin Kaepernick set off a storm of controversy over the weekend when he refused to stand for the National Anthem. He did so in stated protest of the oppression of Black Americans and the images of black bodies lying dead in our nation’s streets. After the game, Kaepernick released the following statement to NFL media:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Predictably, the response ranged from horrific racist smearing to passionate opinions defending and condemning his actions. Somewhere in the middle was a more measured response that reminded us that protest is our most fundamental American right. This country was founded on the premise that protest is vital to prevent oppression. This very country arose out of protest against taxation without representation and religious persecution in England.